6 figures.... No. If you look at the GS Scale, GS12-13 do get that high but that is nowhere near mid career level.
By mid-career level, salaries tend to be in the very high 80's, low 90's. The % of difference (and the tax ranges) make a 8-10K difference to a 6-figure salary to be not that strong (compared to $70K vs $80K).
Also, by mid-career, when working intelligently, we are talking perhaps 7-8 years of *relevant* experience (or 5-6 with a good MS degree). By 10+ years, one should have enough experience to work at a senior level (be it in the government, defense or public sectors.)
> I've seen a lot of FBI/NSA/CIA job postings for computer scientists that advertise 6-figure salaries.
A good computer scientist is not necessarily a good programmer, let alone a good software engineer.
But most of the time, bad software developers (let alone bad programmers) were never good, or even decent computer scientists to begin with. It takes a unique mindset and analytical skills (and/or abundant exposure to programming-related technologies such as in a *good* MIS program) for someone to be a good programmer and software developer without being a computer scientist.
And for the type of jobs for which the article concerns itself, we are usually talking computer science related work (or at least heavily influenced by computer science topics.)
It's clear you've never seen the government at work. There's two issues with the govenrment writing it's own software.
1) Each individual part of the government only needs custom made software once every 5 years or so
2) Every government in the known history of mankind has been utterly incompetent in cross-department communication
Since you can't reasonably expect the government to hire teams of programmers to write software one year and sit on their asses for 4 years while there's on demand and that traditionally trying to centralize the work leads to horror stories, you can see why most governments (even the socialists) have opted for contractors.
The gist of the article is that the government (or defense contractors working on its behalf) should not rely on commercial off-the-shell software. Unless I'm missing something, the article is not about having all software *that matters* developed by developers directly under the government payroll.
Using defense contractors (which are commercial entities) for developing custom software over COTS is pretty much in tandem with the gist of the article.
There's a third issue: salaries. Programming talent is used to silicon valley pay grades, not military pay grades. How many employees would be willing to leave their current position and take a 50% pay cut to work for the government? Would you be willing to trust the code of someone working for $40K/year?
For starters, there are people in the commercial sector working for that amount, either as contractors who make a meager $60K/year with no benefits (and no O/T) or as employees doing $40-50K/year with some meager benefits (and both working 45-55hr/weeks.) It is not the norm, but it ain't that rare either.
Second, most developers (specially those graduating since the dot-com bubble) remain junior in terms of skills, and yet make salaries that are inflated wrt to their skills... and they expect they deserve it! This is more common that the previous case. Do you trust their code?
Third, consider a job with, say, the NSA. They certainly pay you below the industrial average (say $60-70K/year tops). But 1) they train you, 2) they pay your post-grad education, 3) give you benefits that are phenomenal, and 4) they give you a goal or end product (whether good or bad) that is far more stimulating than doing the same e-commerce shit all the time.
This is the problem with so many software developers nowadays. They equate quality with high salaries despite the fact that software is usually written like shit and those who write it get paid far more than in other engineering disciplines. And to add insult to injury, they equate quality of work with base salaries (without taking into consideration all the other benefits like medical coverage, fat retirement plans, and generous vacations according to seniority.)
Furthermore, how many people working out there in the software industry get paid to go get their masters as it is usually done with public/private defense-related jobs? That's one big fat amount of money being received as a benefit.
Base salaries are just part of the story, and the trustworthiness of software has more to do with processes than with individual salaries.
innate personality traits of good software developers that bosses just want to have around.
Have a positive can-do attitude, especially whenever the boss asks you to work evenings and weekends. What bosses love to have around are smart people who get things done and don't mind working 60 hour weeks standard (up from there whenever anything surprising happens or is badly panned) for a 40-hour salary.
Appropriate side question: What behavior traits would you like your co-workers to exhibit?
A little self-respect, and enough spine to refuse to be exploited into giving up your personal life to further your bosses ends. Every time you work long hours, you create expectations that your co-workers should work long hours too, and they will despise you for it.
The text in bold: That is the worst suggestion you can make. As a salaried employee, you do that only in very critical projects and dead lines. It can never be the norm, nor should one be happy about being expected to do so. For hourly paid contractors, however, that is different.
Under normal (read non ZOMG CLUSTERFRAK EMERGENCEYEYE!!!) circumstances, what is required from salaried employees is the ability to 1) estimate completion dates with a degree of confidence and 2) be able to deliver on those days without going into heroic 60hr work weeks.
Don't confuse the author of this article with a geek. Geeks don't give a shit about facebook, twitter, or blogging.
There are quite a few geeks, talented geeks (many of them spearheading some of the most important FOSS projects out there) who are active bloggers and twitteres. Several of the people I have on my facebook are hard-core software/electrical engineers. I don't know what your personal anecdotes are like, but those are mine. YMMV.
That it is still a useful tool to connect with family and friends, which the author of this article refers to in the past tense.
Facebook used to be a benign and somewhat useful tool.
It still is. Just because it no longer provides usefulness to different sectors of the population (of which one contains YOU), that does not indicate it is not useful at all to some other sectors (or to the majority of the population that just wants a de-facto standard of e-networking.)
Now it is mutating into a privacy vampire.
That is in the eye of the beholder wrt what you and I value/give a shit about privacy.
I am a geek, though not a "computer geek". My expertise is bacteria and microorganisms, not IT or computer science. Yet, I have recently wiped a lot of stuff that on longer thinking, I shouldn't have put on Facebook, stuff like certain photos, phone numbers and real world mailing address.
As it should be. Why would you put something like that on a site that is not your own, on infrastructure that is not your own is beyond me. You don't need to be security-savvy to know this. You only need common sense. Having (or not having) common sense is a person's onus, not the onus of an internet portal/networking service for-profit company.
That people fail to understand that (or to grasp the fact that sites like this are business trying to create a niche market based on information and personal networks), that's their (your) fault.
Heck, I now even wiped my birthday from Facebook. I did this after reading about Facebook privacy concerns on Slashdot and everyday news outlets and became concerned myself.
That's sensationalism. I have no problem putting my bod or other information that can be easily gleamed from public records on facebook. It serves several purposes for relatives, friends and past/present co-workers and college-mates with whom I network on facebook. Besides, you have fine-grained control regarding privacy levels on the information you have.
In fact, I will probably cancel my account soon because after 4 years on Facebook, I got little benefit from it that I couldn't get from just emailing someone.
Why probably? Just do so right away. Why wait if it is such a privacy pirate?
Sure it was fun to find your long-lost friend from primary school, but how many of us really follow up?
Projection. Just because you don't follow up, that doesn't mean it holds for a certain % of the population. You can't make conjectures about other people based on what works or does not work for you.
There is usually a good reason why we lost touch with someone, the most common is that we just grew up into a different person. Out of my several hundred Facebook "friends", I can count around only 20 that are actually real friends, not just acquaintances or the social equivalent of archaeological fossils.
But that is a given. What is wrong with keeping connections to people that are now acquaintances and not the close friends they were 10-15 years ago? What is the surprise in that, and what is wrong with it? Some people obtain benefit (socially and emotionally) by keeping those connections alive, even if by just checking each other's glimpses of lives via shared family photos. Others do not.
And. Both. Are. Natural.
Coming back to your point that an open version of Facebook, made by selfless enthusiasts won't work, please go to the Diaspora website linked in this thread. A couple of university kids with nothing but big dreams and good intentions had already managed to raise $17000. This proves that there is a need for such service and people are willing to pay good money for it.
whatever 'geeks only' technology you're talking about only needs an abstraction layer that makes it simple and some flashy artwork that makes it shiny.
That would be an excellent point except that I'm not referring at all by any stretch of the English language to 'geeks only' technology (referring instead to web-based information and publication in general as I clearly state.)
But the tech needs to exist first, and that tech will certainly be created by a collective of selfless enthusiasts.
You are asserting something as if it were a certainty. And assuming it were to happen, it is non-sequitur to my post.
It is easier to write an article (for Wired, that tells you that much) than to actually do it. The whole idea is idiotic anyways (missing the entire point of sites like facebook and people who *want* to use it.) Either he knows that and simply wrote the article to get some traffic, or he really believes it (and thus his intelligence should be called into question.)
Facebook used to be a place to share photos and thoughts with friends and family and maybe play a few stupid games that let you pretend you were a mafia don or a homesteader.
Used to? What, it no longer serves that function?
It became a very useful way to connect with your friends, long-lost friends and family members.
And still is.
And Facebook realized it owned the network.
ZOMG1!!! I think there is a very strong possibility that Facebook *knew* they owned the thing that runs on their f* infrastructure. Maybe that was part of their business model from day one. Crazy I know!!!
Even crazier to think they just realized that fact </facepalm>
Then Facebook decided to turn "your" profile page into your identity online — figuring, rightly, that there’s money and power in being the place where people define themselves.
See above.
Think of being able to buy your own domain name and use simple software such as Posterous to build a profile page in the style of your liking.
Yeah, I can see the typical Facebook user (or the typical consumer of web-based information and publication in general) doing just that. This is what happens when geeks project their own experience and worries onto others, thinking others do as they do, and most importantly, care or worry about the same shit they do. They don't.
If such a proposal ever takes place, all it would do is facilitate the creation of new "facebooks" that will wither and die over time. Eventually people will conglomerate to specific venues with functionality and ethos that appeal to them, run not by a collective of selfless enthusiast but by people who put the time and money to make it happen (and that won't happen just out of charity.)
Talking about missing the entire point of human communication.
Corrons said both Netkairo and Ostiator told him that while they did indeed maintain the Mariposa botnet, they did not develop the botnet code and had relatively few technical skills.
What about Kevin Mitnick? He is making a living by switching his hat from black to white, and no one had a problem with that. It would seem that Panda might do better having a few people who know how to make malware so successfully. The question, of course, is "can you trust them?" and only they can answer that.
What did you expect the guys to do for jobs, flip burgers? Become stock brokers? Of course they would pursue careers in security. It seems they must know a fair amount about it to get away with so much, for so long. They certainly know more than someone coming straight from a CS degree.
Fuck that. I wouldn't hire these people even if they paid me. Knowledge is not equal to intelligence, common sense, and above all, ethics that you can bet your reputation and business on as this following quote from TFA reveals:
Corrons said he met with with Netkairo again at Panda’s offices, but said he repeated his previous statement that the company could not hire someone who had been accused of running a botnet.
“So he says to me, ‘But we still haven’t been charged,’ Corrons recalled. “I told him, ‘It doesn’t matterjust the fact that you are involved is a problem when it comes to working for any serious security company.’ And what he then came out with says a lot about him. He said, “Yeah, but nobody else knows that.”
When it became clear that Panda wasn’t interested in hiring him, Netkairo changed his tune, Corrons said, claiming he had found vulnerabilities in the company’s cloud anti-virus software and hinting that he planned to publish the information.
Desperately stupid geek playing racketeering because he can't find a decent job, even if it is for flipping burguers? Nerd-meet-Tony-Soprano? Only a moron would hire that type of person knowing a priori the type of person he is.
...Kernell did the public a service in helping to expose a corrupt politician.
We don't write law to serve the public.. In fact, some are written to protect the corrupt politician.. seeing as that we let corrupt politicians write the law
Ok, but in the Palin case, the former governor was using this email address to skirt public disclosure requirements. Palin is trying to play the victim here. She is the worst type of politician, and if our system was fair (which is impossible due to people like Palin), then she would be prosecuted as well.
As far as I'm concerned, Kernell did the public a service in helping to expose a corrupt politician.
I wish I could have just gotten 4 years of that newbie experience under my belt instead of spending it on a degree who's only real worth today is to get you that newbie job to begin with.
Sorry to hear that, but we get what we put in. The only way to get some expertise under the belt before graduation is by doing internships if possible, or work in computer labs as a second option. And by working in computer labs I don't mean showing students how to eject the CD drive but doing actual administration and setup (and luckily sysadmin programming/scripting.) The other option is to get an AA/AS degree, then get a job (even if only a data entry/report generating one) while doing the remaining junior and senior year at a 4-year college. With that path, it is almost certain to accumulate 1-2 years of programming experience...
... but most importantly, it allows to create professional networks.
Some anecdotal stories for shits and giggles... When I was in community college, I did everything I could to get a "computer" job. I was working at Home Depot at the time (selling floor/tile stuff and driving forklifts). I pestered management to gave me a job at the store data center (where they ran these old mini-computers and stuff.) Management tried, but there was never an opening. Later I got a part-time job at the comm.college computer lab, setting up software while tutoring and assisting teaching intro-to-micro courses, Pascal, Assembly, C and DBase. First connection was my Pascal professor with whom I got another part-time job doing Visual Basic programming... now I'm programming while getting paid!!!!
Next connection came from another professor with whom I was taking Delphi and Expert Systems programming. Through his class I get to meet a senior developer at one large insurance firm in my city (one of the largest in the country at the time). When I got my AA, he took me under his wing and got a job developing applications with FoxPro (we were doing the transition from procedural to object-oriented programming back then.) I did that while doing my junior and senior year in CS. On my last year, through another connection, I got a part-time job at the computer science department, doing Unix administration. I left my full-time FoxPro job to concentrate on the last 6 months of my senior year while working on that Unix admin job.
I graduated with my BS degree (and 3 years of programming experience already). Through another connection I made with school and work, I got a research job at a research center (distributed systems, formal methods and security were the focus of research). So as I'm plowing my way through the MS program and doing a lot of really good shit in C and C++, network protocol programming, distributed systems and the like, we started working with Java and CORBA...
and alas, through yet, another connection with the research center, I met a group of developers funding a start-up company that was heavy on Java and CORBA. Off I went to my full-time Java development job. 3 years of programming experience and 2 years of research with immediate industrial application sponsored by people doing that for a living. Just a year and a half after graduating with a BS degree and right in the middle of my masters.
After that job, I've had many others, many of them thank exactly for the type of research I did (performance evaluation of distributed authentication systems to be precise.) From SQL and relational database theory to software engineering to network programing to algorithm/complexity theory, each had helped me in a real way in the real world.
My advice to people studying CS - work on your connections and pursue internships/college lab jobs. Many of my friends from college got really sweet jobs right off the bat because they did internships. We get from college what we put in.
Sure I learned some things doing my CS degree, but most of it could have been learned just as well
No game designer should need to know C++. That's for programmers. You can design excellent games using existing engines without touching compiled code. Scripting in lua, python, SCUMM, whatever is all you really need.
So what is the plan here then? To churn the video game equivalent of javascript/web designers? Equating video web design with simple game scripting is like equating enterprise computing with dynamic web page programming. A 4-year degree just for that, for designing on top of existing engines? No discussions on how to design one, on understanding what it takes to make a game (both vertically and horizontally programming, architecture and integration)?
Unless a person is a natural when it comes to understanding programing (efficient programming that is), I highly doubt (based on what I've seen) the average programming student can get that type of understanding without getting closer to the metal. In particular, if this school is banking on being in the DC area and attract the heavy duty simulation market (in the military and medical fields), they need to provide a bit more than just teaching how to program on top of a engine with a scripting language.
Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.
Freedom of speech does not mean a free-for-all usage of anything available to express any point of view. You are free to exercise freedom of speech using the means that are legally available (which are plenty.) Really, not being able to use a copyrighted song to make fun of a political figure does not hamper my liberty of doing so. I haven't seen the satire, but from what I can gather, DeVore is/was in the wrong here unless the artistic work was altered so as to make clear it is a derived art clearly distinguishable from the original (with the derived art being legally usable for such a purpose.)
I was under the impression that for the most part political speech enjoyed a far higher level of protection than most and this seems to fall very clearly into that category.
You are confusing freedom of speech (politically motivated and otherwise) with fair use. Imagine for example (and just for shits and giggles) that during the last presidential elections, the Republican party decides to make a satire of Obama at the tunes of, say, one of Michael Jackson's songs (say, "Beat It".) You could alter the roles with the Democratic party making a satire of McCain/Palin (as well as changing the name of the artist and type of art being used) but the essence is the same - a satire and form of political speech using copyrighted material without parodying the copyrighted material herein used.
It would be legally reasonable that the Jackson's camp would be entitled for monetary fees due to the usage of those songs for purposes other than parodying the song and the artist. The law would recognize the artist' claim (which should not be construed as an attack to freedom of speech.)
As for the analogy with the removal of the Hitler parody videos, I'm sad to see them go, but the law is clear in that satires are not protected in the same way parodies are (wrt of using copyrighted material). None of this should be construed either as an attack to freedom of speech in the form of satire or parody.
Unfortunately, the law is (or seems to be) clear on this. I hope that someday (sooner I hope) the law gets amended so that satires done for non-commercial purposes get the same protection wrt copyrighted materials (at least so that we can all enjoy Hitler going at it for lolcatz sake).
It is called a joke. I'm sure that the concept has also existed in Italy, even predating Roman and Etruscan times.
The holier than thou attitude is what I am taking issue with. "Yay America" is not an opinion, it is mocking another country for its laws. It does not earn any goodwill.
And blasting the person for WHAT YOU DECIDED TO PERCEIVE as Americastan chauvinism and putting into question a country's common law system (of which you have no personal experience to speak of) just because someone made a post that is clearly a joke to anyone that is not brain dead... earns goodwill how?
How does hypocrisy works for you?
If you are going to project e-rage and e-hate towards an American poster (or the American judicial system), at least be honest instead of dressing it with kumbaya calls of goodwill.
Easy tiger, you are not even Brazilian to take offense, certainly has never lived in the US or Brazil. You are not even from this side of the globe. And look at you, with your panties on fire by e-rage. RAAAARGH!!!
Seriously man, you don't know who you were replying to. For all you know, he's a Brazilian living in the US (yes, a foreign person living in the US preferring the US in some ways over his own country. Incredible, I know.) Take me for instance. I'm Nicaraguan, but I live in the US, and the hell that I will back there again. After having lived half of my life under civil law and my other half under case/common law, I much prefer the later when you take all pros and cons into account. I personally know quote a few Brazilians living here who feel the same.
I'm not saying that the dude is a US-living Brazilian, but you really don't know who you are blasting away with your ARGGH-AMERCUNT! post, do you?
you are an asshole and can shove your nationalistic pride up your ass.
You were just looking for an opportunity to vent some long-built steam against what you *think* is American nationalism. You found something, you built yourself into an e-rage and made up an excuse to blast the living crap out of it. I'm not one to judge people for their proclivities, so do as you please. Just don't complain if you get blisters after screwing that nice straw man you just built here.
You can live in a place where corporations can do anything and people can do nothing. Call it freedom if you want and go away.
See, that's reverse nationalism supported by thick brush painted generalizations of something you barely know of. Projection is the clutch for those who like to feel morally superior. Let me know how it works for you. Or better yet, get some help and stop being such a sensitive e-bitch looking for a gratuitous cause to fight for. It might actually do you some good.
Sounds to me like you have don't actually have any friends. All of your "hundreds of miles away" friends are just people you pretend are your friends because you believe they would actually be your friends if you were local to them
Speculation.
Chances are that isn't the case, you just happened to have a single common interest that connected you online.
See? More speculation, of which you are trying very hard to make it offensive simply because you have no way to defend your position with logic.
Your co-workers won't befriend you because you are boring (or a dumbass or rude or some other negative quality)
Projection. Strawman. Speculation. Offensiveness done simply because that's the only recourse you have when trying to defend an illogical, indefensible argument.
and your online friends would behave in the same fashion.
More speculation.
If you can't find time to hang out with your friends then you're doing something very wrong in life.
Some of those things that are being done wrong in life are having a family and kids, adjusting to a new location after moving from other place. I mean, seriously. The typical life of a college graduate is to move wherever works take you, sometimes across the country, far away from your parents and HS friends. Your college friends will also go their own way. This is not counting migrants or people married with people from other countries (whose friends and relatives you will befriend if you are normal.)
So either you didn't make lifelong lasting friends in HS and college (meaning, it is you who is doing something wrong in life.) Or you sever ties with friends the moment they end up in a state or city different from yours (which doesn't necessarily elicit an interesting and healthy way of life either.)
Again, stop projecting. The problem is not with them, it's with you.
Want to know what's much more social and stores none of your information for random strangers forever? Hanging out with your friends. It also happens to be the fastest way to exchange detailed information with them too!
Question: From where I am (Florida), how do I hang out with my friends, school buddies and relatives in California, Massachusetts, Georgia, Yokohama and Central America? Or do they stop being friends and relatives the moment they are no longer within spitting distance? It got to suck in a very insular way to not have people you care to hang out with but are very far away, in this modern, mobile and to a point, nomadic nation of ours. Either that, or you live in a cow town where everybody you know and care for enough to hang out with stays and dies on the same spot.
Here you are making the leap of thinking that all that information is available to random strangers (when in fact, that only happens if you consciously fiddle your privacy settings to make everything public.) Most people in Facebook do not do that, and, unlike Myspace (and the friend-whoring it seems to support), these same facebook users tend to keep visibility open only to actual friends, relatives and co-workers.
I'm a facebooker myself, some of my information is accessible by every one; other just to those I connect with. Fact is, I'm only connected with family, relatives and people I actually know. It's been the best thing since e-mail to keep in touch with relatives and friends thousands of miles away. With people that I've lost contact 10-15 years ago (by virtue of finishing school and/or migration) we have been able to re-found each others.
With it, and with skype, they have been great tools to communicate with faraway friends and family. It's the only way my grandma in Nicaragua and my in-laws in Japan can get regular, daily updates on my baby's growth. Networking sites are some of the best things that have come from the Internet in terms of human interaction.
When people start seeing those as ZOMG, GEEK+ATTENTIONWHORE, BASEMENT! ditching advise about getting out, that's just projecting.
No kidding. The only time I've ever had to search for a module like that in recent years was when trying to install a version of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on an AMD64 laptop back in 2008. Before that, I can't remember for the life of me when I had to do that type of search (97-98 maybe.) Maybe this guy was trying to install a long-forgotten slackware CD (circa 1995) - downloaded via CompuServe to boot - on one of those 486SX Frankenstein computers we used to build from cannibalized parts.
Linux installs have gotten so good (they have been that good for quite a while), that you have to have some weird combination of hardware (say really old-tech parts put together with really, really new-tech parts) to get severe installation problems. The only Yaaargh! we get to say now is at the sound of the linux distro spinning flawlessly (most of the time) on the CD/DVD player.
Serves him right for being an idiot. He should get fired, if for no other reason than it might discourage these kinds
of people from leaving data devices lying around. Would you still feel the same way if it was a laptop containing
200,000 SSNs or a few million credit card records?
Holy LOLCATS!!! I know!!! What if it was The Football or a snuke? And what if it has been a Na'vi baby, or a puppy???
</facepalm>
Appeal to emotion much? Here, have this link with your sanctimonious kool aid.
Slashdot Mirror
6 figures.... No. If you look at the GS Scale, GS12-13 do get that high but that is nowhere near mid career level.
By mid-career level, salaries tend to be in the very high 80's, low 90's. The % of difference (and the tax ranges) make a 8-10K difference to a 6-figure salary to be not that strong (compared to $70K vs $80K).
Also, by mid-career, when working intelligently, we are talking perhaps 7-8 years of *relevant* experience (or 5-6 with a good MS degree). By 10+ years, one should have enough experience to work at a senior level (be it in the government, defense or public sectors.)
10 years at work get by really fast.
> I've seen a lot of FBI/NSA/CIA job postings for computer scientists that advertise 6-figure salaries.
A good computer scientist is not necessarily a good programmer, let alone a good software engineer.
But most of the time, bad software developers (let alone bad programmers) were never good, or even decent computer scientists to begin with. It takes a unique mindset and analytical skills (and/or abundant exposure to programming-related technologies such as in a *good* MIS program) for someone to be a good programmer and software developer without being a computer scientist.
And for the type of jobs for which the article concerns itself, we are usually talking computer science related work (or at least heavily influenced by computer science topics.)
It's clear you've never seen the government at work. There's two issues with the govenrment writing it's own software.
1) Each individual part of the government only needs custom made software once every 5 years or so 2) Every government in the known history of mankind has been utterly incompetent in cross-department communication
Since you can't reasonably expect the government to hire teams of programmers to write software one year and sit on their asses for 4 years while there's on demand and that traditionally trying to centralize the work leads to horror stories, you can see why most governments (even the socialists) have opted for contractors.
The gist of the article is that the government (or defense contractors working on its behalf) should not rely on commercial off-the-shell software. Unless I'm missing something, the article is not about having all software *that matters* developed by developers directly under the government payroll.
Using defense contractors (which are commercial entities) for developing custom software over COTS is pretty much in tandem with the gist of the article.
There's a third issue: salaries. Programming talent is used to silicon valley pay grades, not military pay grades. How many employees would be willing to leave their current position and take a 50% pay cut to work for the government? Would you be willing to trust the code of someone working for $40K/year?
For starters, there are people in the commercial sector working for that amount, either as contractors who make a meager $60K/year with no benefits (and no O/T) or as employees doing $40-50K/year with some meager benefits (and both working 45-55hr/weeks.) It is not the norm, but it ain't that rare either.
Second, most developers (specially those graduating since the dot-com bubble) remain junior in terms of skills, and yet make salaries that are inflated wrt to their skills... and they expect they deserve it! This is more common that the previous case. Do you trust their code?
Third, consider a job with, say, the NSA. They certainly pay you below the industrial average (say $60-70K/year tops). But 1) they train you, 2) they pay your post-grad education, 3) give you benefits that are phenomenal, and 4) they give you a goal or end product (whether good or bad) that is far more stimulating than doing the same e-commerce shit all the time.
This is the problem with so many software developers nowadays. They equate quality with high salaries despite the fact that software is usually written like shit and those who write it get paid far more than in other engineering disciplines. And to add insult to injury, they equate quality of work with base salaries (without taking into consideration all the other benefits like medical coverage, fat retirement plans, and generous vacations according to seniority.)
Furthermore, how many people working out there in the software industry get paid to go get their masters as it is usually done with public/private defense-related jobs? That's one big fat amount of money being received as a benefit.
Base salaries are just part of the story, and the trustworthiness of software has more to do with processes than with individual salaries.
innate personality traits of good software developers that bosses just want to have around.
Have a positive can-do attitude, especially whenever the boss asks you to work evenings and weekends. What bosses love to have around are smart people who get things done and don't mind working 60 hour weeks standard (up from there whenever anything surprising happens or is badly panned) for a 40-hour salary.
Appropriate side question: What behavior traits would you like your co-workers to exhibit?
A little self-respect, and enough spine to refuse to be exploited into giving up your personal life to further your bosses ends. Every time you work long hours, you create expectations that your co-workers should work long hours too, and they will despise you for it.
The text in bold: That is the worst suggestion you can make. As a salaried employee, you do that only in very critical projects and dead lines. It can never be the norm, nor should one be happy about being expected to do so. For hourly paid contractors, however, that is different.
Under normal (read non ZOMG CLUSTERFRAK EMERGENCEYEYE!!!) circumstances, what is required from salaried employees is the ability to 1) estimate completion dates with a degree of confidence and 2) be able to deliver on those days without going into heroic 60hr work weeks.
Don't confuse the author of this article with a geek. Geeks don't give a shit about facebook, twitter, or blogging.
There are quite a few geeks, talented geeks (many of them spearheading some of the most important FOSS projects out there) who are active bloggers and twitteres. Several of the people I have on my facebook are hard-core software/electrical engineers. I don't know what your personal anecdotes are like, but those are mine. YMMV.
And your point being?
That it is still a useful tool to connect with family and friends, which the author of this article refers to in the past tense.
Facebook used to be a benign and somewhat useful tool.
It still is. Just because it no longer provides usefulness to different sectors of the population (of which one contains YOU), that does not indicate it is not useful at all to some other sectors (or to the majority of the population that just wants a de-facto standard of e-networking.)
Now it is mutating into a privacy vampire.
That is in the eye of the beholder wrt what you and I value/give a shit about privacy.
I am a geek, though not a "computer geek". My expertise is bacteria and microorganisms, not IT or computer science. Yet, I have recently wiped a lot of stuff that on longer thinking, I shouldn't have put on Facebook, stuff like certain photos, phone numbers and real world mailing address.
As it should be. Why would you put something like that on a site that is not your own, on infrastructure that is not your own is beyond me. You don't need to be security-savvy to know this. You only need common sense. Having (or not having) common sense is a person's onus, not the onus of an internet portal/networking service for-profit company.
That people fail to understand that (or to grasp the fact that sites like this are business trying to create a niche market based on information and personal networks), that's their (your) fault.
Heck, I now even wiped my birthday from Facebook. I did this after reading about Facebook privacy concerns on Slashdot and everyday news outlets and became concerned myself.
That's sensationalism. I have no problem putting my bod or other information that can be easily gleamed from public records on facebook. It serves several purposes for relatives, friends and past/present co-workers and college-mates with whom I network on facebook. Besides, you have fine-grained control regarding privacy levels on the information you have.
In fact, I will probably cancel my account soon because after 4 years on Facebook, I got little benefit from it that I couldn't get from just emailing someone.
Why probably? Just do so right away. Why wait if it is such a privacy pirate?
Sure it was fun to find your long-lost friend from primary school, but how many of us really follow up?
Projection. Just because you don't follow up, that doesn't mean it holds for a certain % of the population. You can't make conjectures about other people based on what works or does not work for you.
There is usually a good reason why we lost touch with someone, the most common is that we just grew up into a different person. Out of my several hundred Facebook "friends", I can count around only 20 that are actually real friends, not just acquaintances or the social equivalent of archaeological fossils.
But that is a given. What is wrong with keeping connections to people that are now acquaintances and not the close friends they were 10-15 years ago? What is the surprise in that, and what is wrong with it? Some people obtain benefit (socially and emotionally) by keeping those connections alive, even if by just checking each other's glimpses of lives via shared family photos. Others do not.
And. Both. Are. Natural.
Coming back to your point that an open version of Facebook, made by selfless enthusiasts won't work, please go to the Diaspora website linked in this thread. A couple of university kids with nothing but big dreams and good intentions had already managed to raise $17000. This proves that there is a need for such service and people are willing to pay good money for it.
Ow wow, it raised $17K. Oh Yipees!
I work in software, I've worked in securit
whatever 'geeks only' technology you're talking about only needs an abstraction layer that makes it simple and some flashy artwork that makes it shiny.
That would be an excellent point except that I'm not referring at all by any stretch of the English language to 'geeks only' technology (referring instead to web-based information and publication in general as I clearly state.)
But the tech needs to exist first, and that tech will certainly be created by a collective of selfless enthusiasts.
You are asserting something as if it were a certainty. And assuming it were to happen, it is non-sequitur to my post.
It is easier to write an article (for Wired, that tells you that much) than to actually do it. The whole idea is idiotic anyways (missing the entire point of sites like facebook and people who *want* to use it.) Either he knows that and simply wrote the article to get some traffic, or he really believes it (and thus his intelligence should be called into question.)
Facebook used to be a place to share photos and thoughts with friends and family and maybe play a few stupid games that let you pretend you were a mafia don or a homesteader.
Used to? What, it no longer serves that function?
It became a very useful way to connect with your friends, long-lost friends and family members.
And still is.
And Facebook realized it owned the network.
ZOMG1!!! I think there is a very strong possibility that Facebook *knew* they owned the thing that runs on their f* infrastructure. Maybe that was part of their business model from day one. Crazy I know!!!
Even crazier to think they just realized that fact </facepalm>
Then Facebook decided to turn "your" profile page into your identity online — figuring, rightly, that there’s money and power in being the place where people define themselves.
See above.
Think of being able to buy your own domain name and use simple software such as Posterous to build a profile page in the style of your liking.
Yeah, I can see the typical Facebook user (or the typical consumer of web-based information and publication in general) doing just that. This is what happens when geeks project their own experience and worries onto others, thinking others do as they do, and most importantly, care or worry about the same shit they do. They don't.
If such a proposal ever takes place, all it would do is facilitate the creation of new "facebooks" that will wither and die over time. Eventually people will conglomerate to specific venues with functionality and ethos that appeal to them, run not by a collective of selfless enthusiast but by people who put the time and money to make it happen (and that won't happen just out of charity.)
Talking about missing the entire point of human communication.
Corrons said both Netkairo and Ostiator told him that while they did indeed maintain the Mariposa botnet, they did not develop the botnet code and had relatively few technical skills.
Knowledge my ass.
What about Kevin Mitnick? He is making a living by switching his hat from black to white, and no one had a problem with that. It would seem that Panda might do better having a few people who know how to make malware so successfully. The question, of course, is "can you trust them?" and only they can answer that.
What did you expect the guys to do for jobs, flip burgers? Become stock brokers? Of course they would pursue careers in security. It seems they must know a fair amount about it to get away with so much, for so long. They certainly know more than someone coming straight from a CS degree.
Fuck that. I wouldn't hire these people even if they paid me. Knowledge is not equal to intelligence, common sense, and above all, ethics that you can bet your reputation and business on as this following quote from TFA reveals:
Corrons said he met with with Netkairo again at Panda’s offices, but said he repeated his previous statement that the company could not hire someone who had been accused of running a botnet.
“So he says to me, ‘But we still haven’t been charged,’ Corrons recalled. “I told him, ‘It doesn’t matterjust the fact that you are involved is a problem when it comes to working for any serious security company.’ And what he then came out with says a lot about him. He said, “Yeah, but nobody else knows that.”
When it became clear that Panda wasn’t interested in hiring him, Netkairo changed his tune, Corrons said, claiming he had found vulnerabilities in the company’s cloud anti-virus software and hinting that he planned to publish the information.
Desperately stupid geek playing racketeering because he can't find a decent job, even if it is for flipping burguers? Nerd-meet-Tony-Soprano? Only a moron would hire that type of person knowing a priori the type of person he is.
We don't write law to serve the public.. In fact, some are written to protect the corrupt politician.. seeing as that we let corrupt politicians write the law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchanan_v._Warley Yeah, neither laws nor the judicial legislative systems ever work for the people, ever. Tool.
Ok, but in the Palin case, the former governor was using this email address to skirt public disclosure requirements. Palin is trying to play the victim here. She is the worst type of politician, and if our system was fair (which is impossible due to people like Palin), then she would be prosecuted as well.
As far as I'm concerned, Kernell did the public a service in helping to expose a corrupt politician.
What exactly did he exposed?
I wish I could have just gotten 4 years of that newbie experience under my belt instead of spending it on a degree who's only real worth today is to get you that newbie job to begin with.
Sorry to hear that, but we get what we put in. The only way to get some expertise under the belt before graduation is by doing internships if possible, or work in computer labs as a second option. And by working in computer labs I don't mean showing students how to eject the CD drive but doing actual administration and setup (and luckily sysadmin programming/scripting.) The other option is to get an AA/AS degree, then get a job (even if only a data entry/report generating one) while doing the remaining junior and senior year at a 4-year college. With that path, it is almost certain to accumulate 1-2 years of programming experience...
Some anecdotal stories for shits and giggles... When I was in community college, I did everything I could to get a "computer" job. I was working at Home Depot at the time (selling floor/tile stuff and driving forklifts). I pestered management to gave me a job at the store data center (where they ran these old mini-computers and stuff.) Management tried, but there was never an opening. Later I got a part-time job at the comm.college computer lab, setting up software while tutoring and assisting teaching intro-to-micro courses, Pascal, Assembly, C and DBase. First connection was my Pascal professor with whom I got another part-time job doing Visual Basic programming... now I'm programming while getting paid!!!!
Next connection came from another professor with whom I was taking Delphi and Expert Systems programming. Through his class I get to meet a senior developer at one large insurance firm in my city (one of the largest in the country at the time). When I got my AA, he took me under his wing and got a job developing applications with FoxPro (we were doing the transition from procedural to object-oriented programming back then.) I did that while doing my junior and senior year in CS. On my last year, through another connection, I got a part-time job at the computer science department, doing Unix administration. I left my full-time FoxPro job to concentrate on the last 6 months of my senior year while working on that Unix admin job.
I graduated with my BS degree (and 3 years of programming experience already). Through another connection I made with school and work, I got a research job at a research center (distributed systems, formal methods and security were the focus of research). So as I'm plowing my way through the MS program and doing a lot of really good shit in C and C++, network protocol programming, distributed systems and the like, we started working with Java and CORBA...
and alas, through yet, another connection with the research center, I met a group of developers funding a start-up company that was heavy on Java and CORBA. Off I went to my full-time Java development job. 3 years of programming experience and 2 years of research with immediate industrial application sponsored by people doing that for a living. Just a year and a half after graduating with a BS degree and right in the middle of my masters.
After that job, I've had many others, many of them thank exactly for the type of research I did (performance evaluation of distributed authentication systems to be precise.) From SQL and relational database theory to software engineering to network programing to algorithm/complexity theory, each had helped me in a real way in the real world.
My advice to people studying CS - work on your connections and pursue internships/college lab jobs. Many of my friends from college got really sweet jobs right off the bat because they did internships. We get from college what we put in.
Sure I learned some things doing my CS degree, but most of it could have been learned just as well
No game designer should need to know C++. That's for programmers. You can design excellent games using existing engines without touching compiled code. Scripting in lua, python, SCUMM, whatever is all you really need.
So what is the plan here then? To churn the video game equivalent of javascript/web designers? Equating video web design with simple game scripting is like equating enterprise computing with dynamic web page programming. A 4-year degree just for that, for designing on top of existing engines? No discussions on how to design one, on understanding what it takes to make a game (both vertically and horizontally programming, architecture and integration)?
Unless a person is a natural when it comes to understanding programing (efficient programming that is), I highly doubt (based on what I've seen) the average programming student can get that type of understanding without getting closer to the metal. In particular, if this school is banking on being in the DC area and attract the heavy duty simulation market (in the military and medical fields), they need to provide a bit more than just teaching how to program on top of a engine with a scripting language.
Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.
Do you believe in unicorns too?
Freedom of speech does not mean a free-for-all usage of anything available to express any point of view. You are free to exercise freedom of speech using the means that are legally available (which are plenty.) Really, not being able to use a copyrighted song to make fun of a political figure does not hamper my liberty of doing so. I haven't seen the satire, but from what I can gather, DeVore is/was in the wrong here unless the artistic work was altered so as to make clear it is a derived art clearly distinguishable from the original (with the derived art being legally usable for such a purpose.)
I was under the impression that for the most part political speech enjoyed a far higher level of protection than most and this seems to fall very clearly into that category.
You are confusing freedom of speech (politically motivated and otherwise) with fair use. Imagine for example (and just for shits and giggles) that during the last presidential elections, the Republican party decides to make a satire of Obama at the tunes of, say, one of Michael Jackson's songs (say, "Beat It".) You could alter the roles with the Democratic party making a satire of McCain/Palin (as well as changing the name of the artist and type of art being used) but the essence is the same - a satire and form of political speech using copyrighted material without parodying the copyrighted material herein used.
It would be legally reasonable that the Jackson's camp would be entitled for monetary fees due to the usage of those songs for purposes other than parodying the song and the artist. The law would recognize the artist' claim (which should not be construed as an attack to freedom of speech.)
As for the analogy with the removal of the Hitler parody videos, I'm sad to see them go, but the law is clear in that satires are not protected in the same way parodies are (wrt of using copyrighted material). None of this should be construed either as an attack to freedom of speech in the form of satire or parody.
Unfortunately, the law is (or seems to be) clear on this. I hope that someday (sooner I hope) the law gets amended so that satires done for non-commercial purposes get the same protection wrt copyrighted materials (at least so that we can all enjoy Hitler going at it for lolcatz sake).
The holier than thou attitude is what I am taking issue with. "Yay America" is not an opinion, it is mocking another country for its laws. It does not earn any goodwill.
And blasting the person for WHAT YOU DECIDED TO PERCEIVE as Americastan chauvinism and putting into question a country's common law system (of which you have no personal experience to speak of) just because someone made a post that is clearly a joke to anyone that is not brain dead... earns goodwill how?
How does hypocrisy works for you?
If you are going to project e-rage and e-hate towards an American poster (or the American judicial system), at least be honest instead of dressing it with kumbaya calls of goodwill.
But wearing the pissed off person hat
Easy tiger, you are not even Brazilian to take offense, certainly has never lived in the US or Brazil. You are not even from this side of the globe. And look at you, with your panties on fire by e-rage. RAAAARGH!!!
Seriously man, you don't know who you were replying to. For all you know, he's a Brazilian living in the US (yes, a foreign person living in the US preferring the US in some ways over his own country. Incredible, I know.) Take me for instance. I'm Nicaraguan, but I live in the US, and the hell that I will back there again. After having lived half of my life under civil law and my other half under case/common law, I much prefer the later when you take all pros and cons into account. I personally know quote a few Brazilians living here who feel the same.
I'm not saying that the dude is a US-living Brazilian, but you really don't know who you are blasting away with your ARGGH-AMERCUNT! post, do you?
you are an asshole and can shove your nationalistic pride up your ass.
You were just looking for an opportunity to vent some long-built steam against what you *think* is American nationalism. You found something, you built yourself into an e-rage and made up an excuse to blast the living crap out of it. I'm not one to judge people for their proclivities, so do as you please. Just don't complain if you get blisters after screwing that nice straw man you just built here.
You can live in a place where corporations can do anything and people can do nothing. Call it freedom if you want and go away.
See, that's reverse nationalism supported by thick brush painted generalizations of something you barely know of. Projection is the clutch for those who like to feel morally superior. Let me know how it works for you. Or better yet, get some help and stop being such a sensitive e-bitch looking for a gratuitous cause to fight for. It might actually do you some good.
Sounds to me like you have don't actually have any friends. All of your "hundreds of miles away" friends are just people you pretend are your friends because you believe they would actually be your friends if you were local to them
Speculation.
Chances are that isn't the case, you just happened to have a single common interest that connected you online.
See? More speculation, of which you are trying very hard to make it offensive simply because you have no way to defend your position with logic.
Your co-workers won't befriend you because you are boring (or a dumbass or rude or some other negative quality)
Projection. Strawman. Speculation. Offensiveness done simply because that's the only recourse you have when trying to defend an illogical, indefensible argument.
and your online friends would behave in the same fashion.
More speculation.
If you can't find time to hang out with your friends then you're doing something very wrong in life.
Some of those things that are being done wrong in life are having a family and kids, adjusting to a new location after moving from other place. I mean, seriously. The typical life of a college graduate is to move wherever works take you, sometimes across the country, far away from your parents and HS friends. Your college friends will also go their own way. This is not counting migrants or people married with people from other countries (whose friends and relatives you will befriend if you are normal.)
So either you didn't make lifelong lasting friends in HS and college (meaning, it is you who is doing something wrong in life.) Or you sever ties with friends the moment they end up in a state or city different from yours (which doesn't necessarily elicit an interesting and healthy way of life either.)
Again, stop projecting. The problem is not with them, it's with you.
Want to know what's much more social and stores none of your information for random strangers forever? Hanging out with your friends. It also happens to be the fastest way to exchange detailed information with them too!
Question: From where I am (Florida), how do I hang out with my friends, school buddies and relatives in California, Massachusetts, Georgia, Yokohama and Central America? Or do they stop being friends and relatives the moment they are no longer within spitting distance? It got to suck in a very insular way to not have people you care to hang out with but are very far away, in this modern, mobile and to a point, nomadic nation of ours. Either that, or you live in a cow town where everybody you know and care for enough to hang out with stays and dies on the same spot.
Here you are making the leap of thinking that all that information is available to random strangers (when in fact, that only happens if you consciously fiddle your privacy settings to make everything public.) Most people in Facebook do not do that, and, unlike Myspace (and the friend-whoring it seems to support), these same facebook users tend to keep visibility open only to actual friends, relatives and co-workers.
I'm a facebooker myself, some of my information is accessible by every one; other just to those I connect with. Fact is, I'm only connected with family, relatives and people I actually know. It's been the best thing since e-mail to keep in touch with relatives and friends thousands of miles away. With people that I've lost contact 10-15 years ago (by virtue of finishing school and/or migration) we have been able to re-found each others.
With it, and with skype, they have been great tools to communicate with faraway friends and family. It's the only way my grandma in Nicaragua and my in-laws in Japan can get regular, daily updates on my baby's growth. Networking sites are some of the best things that have come from the Internet in terms of human interaction.
When people start seeing those as ZOMG, GEEK+ATTENTIONWHORE, BASEMENT! ditching advise about getting out, that's just projecting.
When did you last use Linux, 2000?
No kidding. The only time I've ever had to search for a module like that in recent years was when trying to install a version of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on an AMD64 laptop back in 2008. Before that, I can't remember for the life of me when I had to do that type of search (97-98 maybe.) Maybe this guy was trying to install a long-forgotten slackware CD (circa 1995) - downloaded via CompuServe to boot - on one of those 486SX Frankenstein computers we used to build from cannibalized parts.
Linux installs have gotten so good (they have been that good for quite a while), that you have to have some weird combination of hardware (say really old-tech parts put together with really, really new-tech parts) to get severe installation problems. The only Yaaargh! we get to say now is at the sound of the linux distro spinning flawlessly (most of the time) on the CD/DVD player.
Serves him right for being an idiot. He should get fired, if for no other reason than it might discourage these kinds of people from leaving data devices lying around. Would you still feel the same way if it was a laptop containing 200,000 SSNs or a few million credit card records?
Holy LOLCATS!!! I know!!! What if it was The Football or a snuke? And what if it has been a Na'vi baby, or a puppy???
</facepalm>
Appeal to emotion much? Here, have this link with your sanctimonious kool aid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_children_(politics)